Having never been overly worried about the competition, I absolutely love the ideas behind Endorse and I salute Sam + Mike for creating something really cool.

I think that it takes big balls to be able to recommend similarly talented people to yourself and I also think that this is an amazing character trait that more people should learn to indulge.

I wanted to elaborate on my thoughts about creating a business model by firstly solving a problem for yourself. Whilst this is an incredible way of building a business, there’s a few thoughts that I’d like to share on the matter:

• If you are solving a problem, it is likely that someone else may have that problem as well (and subsequently they may opt for your solution). If your problem is however very unique to yourself, the likelihood of widespread adoption of your solution becomes much less likely.
• The bigger and more generic your problem; the more potential profit & significance your business may have.
• The problem you’re solving may be more unique / niche / specific, but your solution needs to be simpler and more generic.
• Your idea has a greater chance of success if you are being sincere in solving the problem i.e. solve the problem first & foremost and then figure out whether it’s possible to commoditize & monetize that solution.

This is my presentation - Lessons Learnt From WooThemes - at NetProphet.

You can also see my slides from the presentation over here.

startupquote:

Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.

- Drew Houston

Hopefully my “once” was WooThemes. :)

Crazy kids.